How Has Google Affected The Way Students Learn?

con?:with the advent of personal assistants like Siri and Google Now that aim to serve up information before you even know you need it, you don’t even need to type the questions.

pro: Whenever new technology emerges — including newspapers and television — discussions about how it will threaten our brainpower always crops up, Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker wrote in a 2010 op-ed in The New York Times. Instead of making us stupid, he wrote, the Internet and technology “are the only things that will keep us smart.”

Pro and con: Daphne Bavelier, a professor at the University of Geneva, wrote in 2011 that we may have lost the ability for oral memorization valued by the Greeks when writing was invented, but we gained additional skills of reading and text analysis.

con: Daphne Bavelier, a professor at the University of Geneva, wrote in 2011 that we may have lost the ability for oral memorization valued by the Greeks when writing was invented, but we gained additional skills of reading and text analysis.

con: A 2008 study commissioned by the British Library found that young people go through information online very quickly without evaluating it for accuracy.

pro or con?: A 2011 study in the journal Science showed that when people know they have future access to information, they tend to have a better memory of how and where to find the information — instead of recalling the information itself.

pro: The bright side lies in a 2009 study conducted by Gary Small, the director of University of California Los Angeles’ Longevity Center, that explored brain activity when older adults used search engines. He found that among older people who have experience using the Internet, their brains are two times more active than those who don’t when conducting Internet searches.

the Internet holds great potential for education — but curriculum must change accordingly. Since content is so readily available, teachers should not merely dole out information and instead focus on cultivating critical thinking

make questions “Google-proof.”

“Design it so that Google is crucial to creating a response rather than finding one,” he writes in his company’s blog. “If students can Google answers — stumble on (what) you want them to remember in a few clicks — there’s a problem with the instructional design.”

The topic of the use of electronic devices, being that laptops, and more recently smartphones, tablets 2in1 laptops (or hybrid laptops) has been a disputable issue among instructors.

Under the tutelage of TPR, I am offering to facilitate a campus-wide discussion on the use of electronic devices in the classroom. The short-range goal of such discussion is to provide a platform for SCSU instructors to share their pedagogical experience in handling the use of electronic devices in the classroom.

The long-range goal of such discussion will be to start a conversation among SCSU faculty about the didactic of educational technology; going beyond just learning technology and start building practices for successful use of technology for teaching and learning.

Flanigan, who studies self-regulation, or the processes students use to achieve their learning goals, began researching digital distraction after confronting it in the classroom as a graduate instructor.

Digital distraction tempts all of us, almost everywhere. That’s the premise of Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport, an associate professor of computer science at Georgetown University.

The professor is upset. The professor has taken action, by banning laptops.
Bruff, whose next book, Intentional Tech: Principles to Guide the Use of Educational Technology in College Teaching, is set to be published this fall, is among the experts who think that’s a mistake. Why? Well, for one thing, he said, students are “going to have to graduate and get jobs and use laptops without being on Facebook all day.” The classroom should help prepare them for that.

When Volk teaches a course with 50 or 60 students, he said, “the idea is to keep them moving.”Shifting the focal point away from the professor can help, too. “If they are in a small group with their colleagues,” Volk said, “very rarely will I see them on their laptops doing things they shouldn’t be.”

Professors may not see themselves as performers, but if they can’t get students’ attention, nothing else they do matters. “Learning doesn’t happen without attention,” said Lang, who is writing a book about digital distraction, Teaching Distracted Minds.

One aspect of distraction Lang plans to cover in his book is its history. It’s possible, he said, to regard our smartphones as either too similar or dissimilar from the distractions of the past. And it’s important, he said, to remember how new this technology really is, and how much we still don’t know about it.

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Study: Use of digital devices in class affects students’ long-term retention of information

A new study conducted by researchers at Rutgers University reveals that students who are distracted by texts, games, or videos while taking lecture notes on digital devices are far more likely to have their long-term memory affected and to perform more poorly on exams, even if short-term memory is not impacted, EdSurge reports.

Exam performance was not only poorer for students using the devices, but also for other students in classes that permitted the devices because of the distraction factor, the study found.

After conducting the study, Arnold Glass, the lead researcher, changed his own policy and no longer allows his students to take notes on digital devices.

A nationally representative Gallup poll conducted in March showed that 42% of K-12 teachers feel that the use of digital devices in the classroom are “mostly helpful” for students, while only 28% feel they are “mostly harmful.” Yet 69% of those same teachers feel the devices have a harmful impact on student mental health and 55% feel they negatively affect student physical health.

Using laptops in class harms academic performance, study warns. Researchers say students who use computers score half a grade lower than those who write notes

findings, published in the journal Economics of Education Review in a paper, based on an analysis of the grades of about 5,600 students at a private US liberal arts college, found that using a laptop appeared to harm the grades of male and low-performing students most significantly.

While the authors were unable to definitively say why laptop use caused a “significant negative effect in grades”, the authors believe that classroom “cyber-slacking” plays a major role in lower achievement, with wi-fi-enabled computers providing numerous distractions for students.

The learning experience is different in schools that assign laptops, a survey finds

High schoolers assigned a laptop or a Chromebook were more likely to take notes in class, do internet research, create documents to share, collaborate with their peers on projects, check their grades and get reminders about tests or homework due dates.

Lenovo Launches Modular ThinkPad Tablet

Modules that can be purchased separately will turn the new ThinkPad X1 into a laptop, projector or 3D camera. By Michael Hart 01/04/16

The tablet, available in February, will cost $899. The Productivity Module, also available in February, will be $149. Available in May will be the Projector Module ($279) and the 3D Imaging Module ($149). The other components all will be available by the end of 2016, ranging from $50 for the sleeve to $80 for the adaptor.

While the ThinkPad X1 Tablet and its modules are the primary focus for Lenovo officials, they have also introduced four additional ThinkPad models: the Yoga, Carbon, ThinkCentre X1 AIO and ThinkVision X1.

A Short Guide to Taking Screenshots on Your Laptop and Tablet

Chromebook:
Diigo’s Awesome Screenshot tool. Awesome Screenshot is a simple one step installation
TechSmith’s Snagit. Awesome Screenshot will only capture things that are displayed in your web browser.Snagit download the Snagit Chrome app and the Snagit browser extension. . Both tools allow you to draw and type on top of your screenshot images.Macbook and Windows laptops:
Mac keyboard combination of “Command+shift+4” “Command+shift+3” will capture everything on your screen.

Skitch If you have an Evernote account, you can save Skitch images in your Evernote account.

iPad and iPhone:
Taking a screenshot on an iPad or iPhone is a simple matter of holding down your “home” button (the big round one) and power button at the same time. The image will save directly to your device’s camera roll. When I need to draw, highlight, or type on an image in my camera roll I turn to Skitch again.

Android phones and tablets:
As long as your device is operating on Android 4.0 or later you can take a screenshot by holding down your home button and power/sleep button at the same time. The screenshot should save to your camera roll unless you’ve designated another place for it to save. Once on your camera roll you can use the image in other apps for drawing, cropping, annotating, and sharing. Some Android devices, depending on manufacturer, include a built-in screenshot image editor.Pixlr and Skitch. Skitch on Android offers all of the same features that are outlined above. Pixlr is a more robust tool that allows you to apply image filters in addition to drawing and typing on your images.

Here is a wonderful interactive chart fromGlobal Network Discoverythat you can use to compare the affordances of different laptops. The chart compares a wide variety of laptops on criteria that include things such as : memory, storage capacity, screen size, and weight. You can also use the search functionality accompanied with the chart to refine your search by CPU, brand or model. Hovering your cursor over any laptop icon will display a small box with details pertaining to that product. These details include, besides the specs and features of that laptop, an updated version of its price.
Keep this interactive chart handy to use next time you want to buy a laptop. If you are looking for the best laptops for teachers, you can check this list instead. You can also use the “more” option in the chart to search for other comparison charts on smartphones, flash drives and SSD drives.http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2015/01/a-handy-interactive-chart-comparing.html